Who's There?

If you’ve ever watched any of my TikToks, this is one of the early guides I made on how to draw. I think people are sometimes surprised at the internal goings on that result in a realistic rendered portrait. Here’s some of the philosophical roots of how I work:

“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.” - Kurt Vonnegut

One of my favorite opening lines is from my favorite play, Hamlet.  And if you know anything about opening lines to any written text but especially plays, the first line will often give you a clue ito the events about to unfold.  Hamlet opens with the line, “Who’s There.”  Who’s there.  It’s fitting then that Shakespeare’s Hamlet, one of the most seminal plays in the history of literature, begins with the most primordial question: Who is there.  Who are we.  Why are we here. What is this business of living all about.

So before we get into the mechanics of how to draw, I think it’s important to touch on the foundational question which is, why do we draw?  Why do we make art of any kind, anyway?

This is a notoriously difficult question if for no other reason than the definition of art is notoriously difficult to nail down, but one of the reasons that makes sense to me is that making art is a way of living an examined life.  Making art is a way of actively participating in that essential inquiry into the mystery of existence, and expressing that inquiry through the chosen medium.  In this case, it is a visual medium, but this inquiry can be accessed in all sorts of ways, each of them a unique vessel to source.

And when I say essential, I do mean important,, but I also mean its root meaning.  The root of the words is  “esse”  which in Latin means, “to be.”

We are about delving into that essential mystery, again and again, because the very act of the inquiry is itself the thing. Art can be defined a thousand different ways, and they are thousand different truths, but for the purposes of approaching this technique, this is what I mean when I refer to Art or the Art-Making process: That it is a conduit through which we may get closer to and if we are very lucky and show up consistently, sometimes even connect with and briefly touch That Thing, whatever your name for it: consciousness, source energy, the isness of life, the universe.

That’s what this process all is about, and that’s why we are doing it.